Tuottavuuden, vaikuttavuuden ja kustannusvaikuttavuuden arviointi alueellisesti integroiduissa sosiaali- ja terveyspalveluissa – palvelujen käyttöön perustuva malli ja esimerkkejä

Yli puolet kuntien vuosibudjeteista kuluu sosiaali- ja terveyspalveluihin. Jatkossa väestö ikääntyy ja huoltosuhteen muutos tulee niukentamaan kuntien resursseja ja lisäämään palvelujen tarvetta. Näin ollen vaikuttavien ja kustannustehokkaiden ratkaisumallien luominen on ensiarvoisen tärkeää. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on rakentaa malli, jota voidaan hyödyntää tuottavuuden, vaikuttavuuden ja kustannusvaikuttavuuden jatkuvassa seurannassa alueellisissa sosiaali- ja terveyspalveluissa ja testata mallia esimerkkitapauksilla. Pääpaino on vaikuttavuudessa ja kustannusvaikuttavuudessa. Aiemman tutkimuksen perusteella tuottavuuden, vaikuttavuuden ja kustannusvaikuttavuuden mittaamiseen on useita lähestymistapoja. Tässä tutkimuksessa tuottavuutta arvioidaan panosten ja tuotosten suhteella, vaikuttavuutta palvelujen käytöllä ja kustannusvaikuttavuutta palvelujen käytön kustannuksilla. Kirjallisuudesta nousee esille selkeä tarve yli perinteisten organisaatiorajojen menevälle jatkuvalle vaikuttavuuden seurannalle. Aikaisempi tutkimus kattaa kertaluontoisia selvityksiä, joissa usein mittarit ovat operatiivisella tasolla, toimialasidonnaisia tai vaikeasti mitattavissa. Tutkimus on suunnittelutiedettä. Tutkimuksen lopputuloksena syntyy sosiaali- ja terveyspalvelujen käyttömalli (sote-palvelujen käyttömalli), jota varten toteutetaan tietokanta ja raportointikerros. Sote-palvelujen käyttömallia testataan tässä tutkimuksessa kolmella eri organisaatioyksiköllä ja asiakasryhmällä, jotka ovat strategisesti merkittäviä tutkittavalle organisaatiolle ja asiakasryhmiin on kohdennettu selkeä kehittämistoimenpide (kuntoutukseen panostaminen ja vammaisten sekä vanhusten laitoshoidon purku). Sote-palvelujen käyttömalli tuottaa tietoa kehittämistoimenpiteiden tuottavuudesta, vaikuttavuudesta ja kustannusvaikuttavuudesta. Sote-palvelujen käyttömallin todetaan soveltuvan tutkittavaan organisaatioon ja sote-palvelujen käyttömalli on sielläjatkuvassa käytössä. Sote-palvelujen käyttömalli on siirrettävissä myös muihin soteorganisaatioihin ja laajennettavissa myös muihin sosiaali- ja terveyspalveluihin ja niitä lähellä oleviin palveluihin.

Critical success factors for improving societal effectiveness of transport sector's R&D

This study investigates societal effectiveness of transport sector’s Research & Development (R&D) operations. In this study effectiveness refers to organization’s capability to produce the intended and desired impacts through its operations. The aim of this study is to identify the motives for evaluating societal effectiveness and recognize the critical success factors for improving effectiveness. The theoretical framework focuses first in the policy context of effectiveness evaluation in public sector and secondly the framework introduces the concept and process of effectiveness evaluation. The empirical part is carried out as a case study, which investigates societal effectiveness of Finnish Transport Agency’s (FTA’s) R&D. The aim is to recognize FTA’s critical success factors for improving R&D operations’ societal effectiveness. Based on these factors, the organization is able to define indicators for measuring effectiveness in the future operations. In this study societal effectiveness is investigated from R&D purchasers’ and R&D end- users’ points of views according to Purchaser-Provider-model. The results indicate that societal effectiveness evaluation is important part of R&D operations, but the implementation of the evaluation as part of daily operations is challenging. Because of limited resources, the organization is forced to strong priorization and therefore R&D tasks are secondary after the operational tasks. Based on the results the critical success factors can be recognized as resources and priorization, clear strategy and objectives, internal communications, cooperation between public and private sector and R&D implementation and dissemination.

Collectiveness within startup teams – Leading the way to initiating and managing collective pursuit of opportunities in organizational contexts

While traditional entrepreneurship literature addresses the pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities to a solo entrepreneur, scholars increasingly agree that new ventures are often founded and operated by entrepreneurial teams as collective efforts especially in hightechnology industries. Researchers also suggest that team ventures are more likely to survive and succeed than ventures founded by the individual entrepreneur although specific challenges might relate to multiple individuals being involved in joint entrepreneurial action. In addition to new ventures, entrepreneurial teams are seen central for organizing work in established organizations since the teams are able to create major product and service innovations that drive organizational success. Acknowledgement of the entrepreneurial teams in various organizational contexts has challenged the notion on the individual entrepreneur. However, considering that entrepreneurial teams represent a collective-level phenomenon that bases on interactions between organizational members, entrepreneurial teams may not have been studied as indepth as could be expected from the point of view of the team-level, rather than the individual or the individuals in the team. Many entrepreneurial team studies adopt the individualized view of entrepreneurship and examine the team members’ aggregate characteristics or the role of a lead entrepreneur. The previous understandings might not offer a comprehensive and indepth enough understanding of collectiveness within entrepreneurial teams and team venture performance that often relates to the team-level issues in particular. In addition, as the collective-level of entrepreneurial teams has been approached in various ways in the existing literatures, the phenomenon has been difficult to understand in research and practice. Hence, there is a need to understand entrepreneurial teams at the collective-level through a systematic and comprehensive perspective. This study takes part in the discussions on entrepreneurial teams. The overall objective of this study is to offer a description and understanding of collectiveness within entrepreneurial teams beyond individual(s). The research questions of the study are: 1) what collectiveness within entrepreneurial teams stands for, what constitutes the basic elements of it, and who are included in it, 2) why, how, and when collectiveness emerges or reinforces within entrepreneurial teams, and 3) why collectiveness within entrepreneurial teams matters and how it could be developed or supported. In order to answer the above questions, this study bases on three approaches, two set of empirical data, two analysis techniques, and conceptual study. The first data set consists of 12 qualitative semi-structured interviews with business school students who are seen as prospective entrepreneurs. The data is approached through a social constructionist perspective and analyzed through discourse analysis. The second data set bases on a qualitative multiplecase study approach that aims at theory elaboration. The main data consists of 14 individual and four group semi-structured thematic interviews with members of core entrepreneurial teams of four team startups in high-technology industries. The secondary data includes publicly available documents. This data set is approached through a critical realist perspective and analyzed through systematic thematic analysis. The study is completed through a conceptual study that aims at building a theoretical model of collective-level entrepreneurship drawing from existing literatures on organizational theory and social-psychology. The theoretical work applies a positivist perspective. This study consists of two parts. The first part includes an overview that introduces the research background, knowledge gaps and objectives, research strategy, and key concepts. It also outlines the existing knowledge of entrepreneurial team literature, presents and justifies the choices of paradigms and methods, summarizes the publications, and synthesizes the findings through answering the above mentioned research questions. The second part consists of five publications that address independent research questions but all enable to answer the research questions set for this study as a whole. The findings of this study suggest a map of relevant concepts and their relationships that help grasp collectiveness within entrepreneurial teams. The analyses conducted in the publications suggest that collectiveness within entrepreneurial teams stands for cognitive and affective structures in-between team members including elements of collective entity, collective idea of business, collective effort, collective attitudes and motivations, and collective feelings. Collectiveness within entrepreneurial teams also stands for specific joint entrepreneurial action components in which the structures are constructed. The action components reflect equality and democracy, and open and direct communication in particular. Collectiveness emerges because it is a powerful tool for overcoming individualized barriers to entrepreneurship and due to collectively oriented desire for, collective value orientation to, demand for, and encouragement to team entrepreneurship. Collectiveness emerges and reinforces in processes of joint creation and realization of entrepreneurial opportunities including joint analysis and planning of the opportunities and strategies, decision-making and realization of the opportunities, and evaluation, feedback, and sanctions of entrepreneurial action. Collectiveness matters because it is relevant for potential future entrepreneurs and because it affects the ways collective ventures are initiated and managed. Collectiveness also matters because it is a versatile, dynamic, and malleable phenomenon and the ideas of it can be applied across organizational contexts that require team work in discovering or creating and realizing new opportunities. This study further discusses how the findings add to the existing knowledge of entrepreneurial team literature and how the ideas can be applied in educational, managerial, and policy contexts.

Organizational creativity – Hegemonic and alternative discourses

SUMMARY Organizational creativity – hegemonic and alternative discourses Over the course of recent developments in the societal and business environment, the concept of creativity has been brought into new arenas. The rise of ‘creative industries’ and the idea of creativity as a form of capital have attracted the interests of business and management professionals – as well as academics. As the notion of creativity has been adopted in the organization studies literature, the concept of organizational creativity has been introduced to refer to creativity that takes place in an organizational context. This doctoral thesis focuses on organizational creativity, and its purpose is to explore and problematize the hegemonic organizational creativity discourse and to provide alternative viewpoints for theorizing about creativity in organizations. Taking a discourse theory approach, this thesis, first, provides an outline of the currently predominant, i.e. hegemonic, discourse on organizational creativity, which is explored regarding themes, perspectives, methods and paradigms. Second, this thesis consists of five studies that act as illustrations of certain alternative viewpoints. Through these exemplary studies, this thesis sheds light on the limitations and taken-for-granted aspects of the hegemonic discourse and discusses what these alternative viewpoints could offer for the understanding of and theorizing for organizational creativity. This study leans on an assumption that the development of organizational creativity knowledge and the related discourse is not inevitable or progressive but rather contingent. The organizational creativity discourse has developed in a certain direction, meaning that some themes, perspectives, and methods, as well as assumptions, values, and objectives, have gained a hegemonic position over others, and are therefore often taken for granted and considered valid and relevant. The hegemonization of certain aspects, however, contributes to the marginalization of others. The thesis concludes that the hegemonic discourse on organizational creativity is based on an extensive coverage of certain themes and perspectives, such as those focusing on individual cognitive processes, motivation, or organizational climate and their relation to creativity, to name a few. The limited focus on some themes and the confinement to certain prevalent perspectives, however, results in the marginalization of other themes and perspectives. The negative, often unintended, consequences, implications, and side effects of creativity, the factors that might hinder or prevent creativity, and a deeper inquiry into the ontology and epistemology of creativity have attracted relatively marginal interest. The material embeddedness of organizational creativity, in other words, the physical organizational environment as well as the human body and its non-cognitive resources, has largely been overlooked in the hegemonic discourse, although thereare studies in this area that give reason to believe that they might prove relevant for the understanding of creativity. The hegemonic discourse is based on an individual-centered understanding of creativity which overattributes creativity to an individual and his/her cognitive capabilities, while simultaneously neglecting how, for instance, the physical environment, artifacts, social dynamics and interactions condition organizational creativity. Due to historical reasons, quantitative as well as qualitative yet functionally- oriented studies have predominated the organizational creativity discourse, although studies falling into the interpretationist paradigm have gradually become more popular. The two radical paradigms, as well as methodological and analytical approaches typical of radical research, can be considered to hold a marginal position in the field of organizational creativity. The hegemonic organizational creativity discourse has provided extensive findings related to many aspects of organizational creativity, although the con- ceptualizations and understandings of organizational creativity in the hegemonic discourse are also in many respects limited and one-sided. The hegemonic discourse is based on an assumption that creativity is desirable, good, necessary, or even obligatory, and should be encouraged and nourished. The conceptualiza- tions of creativity favor the kind of creativity which is useful, valuable and can be harnessed for productivity. The current conceptualization is limited to the type of creativity that is acceptable and fits the managerial ideology, and washes out any risky, seemingly useless, or negative aspects of creativity. It also limits the possible meanings and representations that ‘creativity’ has in the respective discourse, excluding many meanings of creativity encountered in other discourses. The excessive focus on creativity that is good, positive, productive and fits the managerial agenda while ignoring other forms and aspects of creativity, however, contributes to the dilution of the notion. Practices aimed at encouraging the kind of creativity may actually entail a risk of fostering moderate alterations rather than more radical novelty, as well as management and organizational practices which limit creative endeavors, rather than increase their likelihood. The thesis concludes that although not often given the space and attention they deserve, there are alternative conceptualizations and understandings of organizational creativity which embrace a broader notion of creativity. The inability to accommodate the ‘other’ understandings and viewpoints within the organizational creativity discourse runs a risk of misrepresenting the complex and many-sided phenomenon of creativity in organizational context. Keywords: Organizational creativity, creativity, organization studies, discourse theory, hegemony

Exploring the impact of celebrity endorsement and product class involvement on advertising effectiveness: an eye tracking approach

Celebrity endorsement has increased in popularity over the past decades and companies are willing to spend increasingly excessive amounts of money into it. Even though multiple studies support celebrity endorsement, further research on its impact on advertising effectiveness is called for. Fur-ther, the role of consumers’ product class involvement in advertising needs to be further studied. The purpose of this study is to explore if consumers’ product class involvement and exposure to celebrity endorsers affect consumers brand recall. Supported by earlier studies, brand recall was used as a measure for advertising effectiveness in this study. In general, a psychological approach was chosen for building the theoretical framework. Concept of classical conditioning was presented in order to understand why people act how they do. Balanced theory and meaning transfer model were presented in order to study how celebrities can be used effectively in advertising context. Further, the importance of product class involvement in advertising effectiveness was evaluated. Hypotheses were formulated based on a literature review of the existing research. Because of the versatility of the research design, a mixed methods approach for this study was adopted. Empirical part of the study was conducted in three stages. First, a pre-test was conducted in order to choose suitable product endorsers for the advertisement stimuli used in the experiment. Second, an eye-tracking experiment with 30 test subjects was conducted in order to study how people view advertisements and whether the familiarity of the product endorser and consumers’ product class involvement affects brand recall. For the experiment, a fictional brand was created in order to avoid bias on brand recall. Third, qualitative interviews for 15 test subjects were conducted in the post-experiment stage in order to gain deeper understating of the phenomenon and to make sense of the findings from the experiment. Findings from this study support celebrity endorsement by suggesting that a famous spokesperson does not steal attention from brand information more than a non-celebrity product endorser. As a result, the use of a celebrity endorser did not decrease brand recall. Results support earlier research as consumer’ higher product class involvement resulted in a better brand recall. Findings from the interviews suggest that consumers have positive perceptions of celebrity endorsement in general. However, the celebrity–brand congruence is a crucial factor when creating attitudes towards the advertisement. Future research ideas were presented based on the limitations and results of this study

Adherence to Treatment in Psychotic Disorders - Development of user-centered mobile health intervention

The aim of this study was to explore adherence to treatment among people with psychotic disorders through the development of user-centered mobile technology (mHealth) intervention. More specifically, this study investigates treatment adherence as well as mHealth intervention and the factors related to its possible usability. The data were collected from 2010 to 2013. First, patients’ and professionals’ perceptions of adherence management and restrictive factors of adherence were described (n = 61). Second, objectives and methods of the intervention were defined based on focus group interviews and previously used methods. Third, views of patients and professionals about barriers and requirements of the intervention were described (n = 61). Fourth, mHealth intervention was evaluated based on a literature review (n = 2) and patients preferences regarding the intervention (n = 562). Adherence management required support in everyday activities, social networks and maintaining a positive outlook. The factors restricting adherence were related to illness, behavior and the environment. The objective of the intervention was to support the intention to follow the treatment guidelines and recommendations with mHealth technology. The barriers and requirements for the use of the mHealth were related to technology, organizational issues and the users themselves. During the course of the intervention, 33 (6%) out of 562 participants wanted to edit the content, timing or amount of the mHealth tool, and 23 (4%) quit the intervention or study before its conclusion. According to the review, mHealth interventions were ineffective in promoting adherence. Prior to the intervention, participants perceived that adherence could be supported, and the use of mHealth as a part of treatment was seen as an acceptable and efficient method for doing so. In conclusion, the use of mHealth may be feasible among people with psychotic disorders. However, clear evidence for its effectiveness in regards to adherence is still currently inconclusive.

Managing the change of organizational culture in cross-border mergers and acquisitions: The role of post-acquisition integration in organizational culture change

Over the years, cross-border mergers and acquisitions have become a popular strategic option for variety of firms. Companies often seek rapid growth through acquiring potentially valuable enterprises or attempting to enhance their organization’s profitability by merging with other firms. However, managing the change of organizational culture is a major managerial challenge as companies often confront difficulties when merging two previously autonomous organizational cultures into one, joint organizational culture. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to increase understanding related to the challenges and possibilities concerning the management of organizational culture change in cross-border mergers and acquisitions. The research question “How to manage the change of organizational culture in cross-border mergers and acquisitions?” is analysed in relation to the theories presented in this thesis regarding organizational culture, organizational change and acculturation as well as in relation with the collected empirical data. The research question is divided into three sub-questions according to the following: (1) “What is the role of organizational culture in organizations?”, (2) “How to manage organizational change in mergers and acquisitions?” and (3) “How to manage organizational culture change through acculturation?”. The thesis is conducted as a qualitative case study research including three personal interviews and one group interview. The interviews were conducted as a combination of semi-structured and unstructured interviews. Theories related to organizational culture, the management of change as well as acculturation are studied and further analysed in relation to empirical material collected by the researcher. Research findings indicate that that several factors can influence the success of managing the organizational culture change in cross-border mergers and acquisitions. Factors such as defining the preferred acculturation model prior the merger; managing the resistance of change; open communication; acknowledgement of local culture and cultural differences; involvement of personnel in change processes; as well as the formulation and implementation of comprehensive change plans proved to be important factors with relation to successful management of organizational culture change